LA JOLLA, Calif. - UC San Diego ran into the buzz saw that currently is the eighth-ranked Gauchos of UC Santa Barbara, suffering a straight-set defeat in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) men's volleyball match at RIMAC Arena on Friday night. Game scores were 25-14, 25-15 and 25-15.
UCSD fell to 2-14 overall and 0-11 in the MPSF while reaching the midway point of the conference slate. UCSB moved to 11-5 overall and 7-5 in league play. The Gauchos extended their win streaks to five matches and 14 sets in succession. They have also now beaten the Tritons four straight times, all in three games.
Tanner Syftestad had team highs of seven kills and three total blocks for UCSD. Tyler Bird had eight digs. Tri-captain José Carlos Martinez came off the bench to provide 17 assists from his setter position. Luke La Mont produced four kills and three digs, also in a reserve role. Fellow true freshman Ryan Schickling turned in the first two kills, on four swings without an error, and dig, of his college career.
Jacob Delson of UCSB led all players with 11 kills. Junior setter Jonah Seif finished with 32 assists, six digs, four kills, one block, and a match-high two service aces. Senior middle blocker Jake Staahl, who began the week with the top hitting percentage in the MPSF at .471, put down six kills at a .556 clip (6-1-9), and added a match-high five total blocks and one ace. Kevin Donohue had six kills and eight digs.
The Tritons held their one and only lead of the night after the first serve that went up, in the form of a service error by Seif. Back-to-back Ian Colbert kills, followed immediately by the contest's lone triple block from Colbert, Syftestad and Mathew Schnitzer, pulled UCSD even a third and final time in the set at 5-5. An entertaining, lengthy rally ended in block assists for Donohue and Ryan Hardy to give the visitors an 8-5 edge. Coming out of the first timeout of the evening by UCSD later in the frame, consecutive blocks, with a combination stuff from Staahl and Weston Nielsen, and then a solo effort by Staahl, put the Gauchos in command at 17-9.
UCSB galloped out to leads of 5-1 and 11-5 in the second game before the Tritons called for time. Syftestad and redshirt freshman middle Bryan Zhu (San Diego/Rancho Bernardo HS) teamed up to turn back Nielsen and pull to within 13-9, but a run of seven out of eight points for the Gauchos eventually made it 21-11.
Again in the third, UC Santa Barbara registered the first point, got out to a solid 6-1 advantage, and never looked back. The Gauchos were up 13-6 at the first break. Zhu and La Mont came up with thunderous kills off sets from Martinez and Milosh Stojcic for 15-10 and 19-14, respectively, but UCSB was just too much to contend with.
UCSD rounds out a three-match home week against ninth-ranked UCLA on Saturday night, Feb. 28. The Bruins lost 3-0 (25-19, 25-17, 25-17) at No. 3 UC Irvine on Friday. First serve inside RIMAC Arena is set for 7 p.m.
#TritonsRising
